Statements like "Angels and demons are active in the world" get 40% "completely agree" and 28% "mostly agree". 19% of Christians claim to speak in tongues, and half of those claim it's at least weekly. 62% for "definite answer to a specific prayer request" at least several times per year.

GameSprocket:That is in the UK. I'm sure it is higher in the USA. Hell, we probably have 19% believing that 9/11 was a government plot.

Crap. If only 20% of US citizens doubted climate change I would consider that a victory.In general population poles you aren't going to get past the 80/20 rule short of something hands down right/wrong and even then the percentage that believe (or at least will answer on a survey) the wrong answer will amaze you.

TheGogmagog:GameSprocket: That is in the UK. I'm sure it is higher in the USA. Hell, we probably have 19% believing that 9/11 was a government plot.

Crap. If only 20% of US citizens doubted climate change I would consider that a victory.In general population poles you aren't going to get past the 80/20 rule short of something hands down right/wrong and even then the percentage that believe (or at least will answer on a survey) the wrong answer will amaze you.

It always amazes me - there is a quiz show in the UK called Pointless in which 100 people are asked questions, and they have a minute to give all the answers they can think of (then the contestants try to get answers few or no one thought of in time). The astonishing thing is the scores - so you can have answers that should be completely trivial and should score 100% but never do, like you might have "What are the five emergency services you can get help from by dialing 999?", and then "Fire", "Police" and "Ambulance" were only mentioned by 85-95% of people ("Coast Guard" and "Mountain Rescue" being somewhat lower being not so unreasonable). I mean you understand where there are 100s of possible answers the results will be skewed lower, as people might be thinking of other answers first and running out of time, but that doesn't really cover when there are only a handful of answers and some are still missing basic answers.

As one of the few people who post here with actual relevant degrees in the subject, I am not a climate change denier. That very term though is meant to hide the argument. Climate change happens and is happening.

What I think is overstated is mans effect on the climate. Global warming doesn't work anymore so now its "climate change".

Pocket_Fisherman:As one of the few people who post here with actual relevant degrees in the subject, I am not a climate change denier. That very term though is meant to hide the argument. Climate change happens and is happening.

What I think is overstated is mans effect on the climate. Global warming doesn't work anymore so now its "climate change".

Pocket_Fisherman:As one of the few people who post here with actual relevant degrees in the subject, I am not a climate change denier. That very term though is meant to hide the argument. Climate change happens and is happening.

What I think is overstated is mans effect on the climate. Global warming doesn't work anymore so now its "climate change".

legion_of_doo:And yet some of you dogmatic global warming alarmists seem to want it to be about the one true belief.

That's a good point. So maybe we should consider only the published evidence.

See above: 97.1% of the scientific papers that point to a conclusion on anthropogenic climate change point towards affirming its significance. 1.0% express uncertainty. A whopping 1.9% present evidence against the effect.

By the way, "dogmatic" refers more to people who just assert things and demand compliance, kind of like your style of argument now that we're discussing it. What the scientists are showing you is empirical data supporting their theories. That's kind of a big different.

The percentage of people who believe that anthropogenic warming exists would probably be higher if certain people and agencies stopped using the most extreme projections as predictions for the future. When you make predictions that have a tendency to fail, people will think that you're full of it.

State_College_Arsonist:The percentage of people who believe that anthropogenic warming exists would probably be higher if certain people and agencies stopped using the most extreme projections as predictions for the future.

"Certain people"? You sound like a catty teenage girl deniably complaining about her friends on Facebook. Who are these "certain people and agencies"?

Marcus Aurelius:Pocket_Fisherman: Global warming doesn't work anymore so now its "climate change".

"Climate change" is a term invented by industrialists and foisted upon us by the media. They took exception to the term "global warming".

What people need to do is stop thinking about it as global "warming", and instead think about it in thermodynamic terms. When you add energy to a dynamic, fluid system (not a static system, this is VERY important), what happens? You end up with greater chaos and exaggerated local extremes. Storms get more severe, including those with snow, lows local temps get lower, highs get higher, droughts get worse, etc. So yes, a result of global warming will be nasty snow storms in places that don't usually get it.

Of course your mean temperature goes up, but it's a completely meaningless number. The atmosphere is never at equilibrium, and temperature is measured locally, and for good reason.

Do you ever hear a meteorologist tell you the mean temperature of the planet? Of course not, because it's a farking useless number.

chimp_ninja:"Climate change" (and its derivatives like "anthropogenic climate change") has been the standard term in the scientific literature for decades. Here's a 1979 paper in Science by Carl Sagan where he uses the term without explanation (implying it's common parlance). Here's a peer-reviewed paper from 1969 showing the term is in common use even then

I was speaking from a socio-political-media perspective, as opposed to a scientific perspective. From the standpoint of science, of course you are correct.

Khellendros:Do you ever hear a meteorologist tell you the mean temperature of the planet? Of course not, because it's a farking useless number

You know what is not a useless number? The amount the sea level is going to rise due to excess CO2 levels.

Ambitwistor:State_College_Arsonist: The percentage of people who believe that anthropogenic warming exists would probably be higher if certain people and agencies stopped using the most extreme projections as predictions for the future.

"Certain people"? You sound like a catty teenage girl deniably complaining about her friends on Facebook. Who are these "certain people and agencies"?

Disbelievers is a strong word, more that they don't accept the reasons fed to them for over a decade and are tiring of them just "adjusting" data to meet their goals when their models fall short of their expected results.

There are other reasons for the earth warming up, core samples have proven it does this without any help from us so blaming it all on human intervention sounds egotistical.

Dusk-You-n-Me:State_College_Arsonist: if certain people and agencies stopped using the most extreme projections as predictions for the future.

Do you have evidence of this? Because there's evidence of the exact opposite.

Do you watch the news? When the IPCC reports a 95% confidence range for future temperatures, it makes sense for the media to report the high end of the scale, as it is more of a doomsday projection that makes it more exciting, and therefore attracts more readers. Now that the model from 1998 is already almost outside of this confidence range on the low end, its turning a lot of the viewers off.

/Yes, we are warmingYes, we are causing some of it.No, it is not as severe as projected in 1998.Yes, we should find cleaner energy sources.

steamingpile:Disbelievers is a strong word, more that they don't accept the reasons fed to them for over a decade and are tiring of them just "adjusting" data to meet their goals when their models fall short of their expected results.

There are other reasons for the earth warming up, core samples have proven it does this without any help from us so blaming it all on human intervention sounds egotistical.

It does not matter how something "sounds". When you have data that provides an explanation that is better than current evidence-based theories, then you have something. Until then, you're a barking peanut gallery. Stop talking about how "egotistical" something sounds, and show where the data is incorrect, or changes the statistical discussion.

piledhigheranddeeper:When the IPCC reports a 95% confidence range for future temperatures, it makes sense for the media to report the high end of the scale, as it is more of a doomsday projection that makes it more exciting

That's on the media, not the IPCC. The IPCC has consistently been conservative in their reports, not extreme.

A comparison of past IPCC predictions against 22 years of weather data and the latest climate science find that the IPCC has consistently underplayed the intensity of global warming in each of its four major reports released since 1990.

The drastic decline of summer Arctic sea ice is one recent example: In the 2007 report, the IPCC concluded the Arctic would not lose its summer ice before 2070 at the earliest. But the ice pack has shrunk far faster than any scenario scientists felt policymakers should consider; now researchers say the region could see ice-free summers within 20 years.

Sea-level rise is another. In its 2001 report, the IPCC predicted an annual sea-level rise of less than 2 millimeters per year. But from 1993 through 2006, the oceans actually rose 3.3 millimeters per year, more than 50 percent above that projection.

Dusk-You-n-Me:piledhigheranddeeper: When the IPCC reports a 95% confidence range for future temperatures, it makes sense for the media to report the high end of the scale, as it is more of a doomsday projection that makes it more exciting

That's on the media, not the IPCC. The IPCC has consistently been conservative in their reports, not extreme.

A comparison of past IPCC predictions against 22 years of weather data and the latest climate science find that the IPCC has consistently underplayed the intensity of global warming in each of its four major reports released since 1990.

The drastic decline of summer Arctic sea ice is one recent example: In the 2007 report, the IPCC concluded the Arctic would not lose its summer ice before 2070 at the earliest. But the ice pack has shrunk far faster than any scenario scientists felt policymakers should consider; now researchers say the region could see ice-free summers within 20 years.

Sea-level rise is another. In its 2001 report, the IPCC predicted an annual sea-level rise of less than 2 millimeters per year. But from 1993 through 2006, the oceans actually rose 3.3 millimeters per year, more than 50 percent above that projection.

Link

If anything we are underestimating the damage we are causing by pumping tons of carbon into the atmosphere.

Good point,

I've always wondered why we can't use sea level as a major guide on warming rates. To me, that is a lot more solid and easy to measure than the other proxy data that is collected.

Pocket_Fisherman:As one of the few people who post here with actual relevant degrees in the subject, I am not a climate change denier. That very term though is meant to hide the argument. Climate change happens and is happening.

What I think is overstated is mans effect on the climate. Global warming doesn't work anymore so now its "climate change".

Let me guess, you have a degree in dental science? Maybe another in custodial engineering?